HP recently said that its webOS will live on as open source, but the company didn’t say exactly when that the source code was to be released.

Now, HP is ready to finally talk specifics on when it’s set to make the source code for webOS available to the open-source community. The company says that it will roll out the webOS code in phases, with the full thing expected to be released by the end of September.

The company is starting off the gradual roll-out with the release of the Enyo 2.0 source code, a webOS tool that allows developers to create apps that run on tablets, phones, and even desktop browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

“This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform’s development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of Web applications,” Bill Veghte, HP’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer, said in a statement.

While the full, finalized webOS open source code won’t be made available until September, HP says that it aims to release a beta version to developers by August.

HP targeting September release for open source webOS is a post from: The Inquisitr

Apple announced their Q1 2012 earnings yesterday that absolutely blew past all expectations while also smashing previous records for revenue, profit, and sales. One product that particularly shined was the iPad, the very popular tablet that still commands most of the market.

Although that did well, so did sales of the Mac which were up 26% compared to the previous quarter. Once being a huge money maker for the company, the iPod is now much less of a money maker. Sales of iPods were down 21% which shows that more people are buying either iPhones or iPads. At the end of the day, the iPod Touch is a stripped down version of the smartphone.

Via Apple Insider:

“Apple has surpassed HP in both computer unit sales and revenues for the first time, taking the top spot sooner than expected on record sales of iPads. Rather than losing sales to low priced tablets, Apple said it would “continue to innovate like crazy” in the tablet arena.”

“Apple reported record quarterly sales of 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs, giving the company over 20 million sales of dedicated personal computing devices (distinct from its sales of more than 37 million phones). Gartner reported HP’s worldwide sales for the fourth quarter to be 14.7 million, while Lenovo and Dell sold 12.9 and 11.6 million units, respectively.”

For the first time ever, we’re starting to see PC sales slightly decline while interest in tablets goes up. While desktops and laptops won’t be replaced anytime soon, it shows an interesting shift to touchscreen devices and the convenience of them.

Do you own an Apple iPad?

Apple Sells More Of The iPad Than HP Does PCs is a post from: The Inquisitr

2012 is said to be the year of many ultrabooks, which are essentially laptops designed to be incredibly thin, very portable, and have solid performance. The word is more of a marketing buzz word than anything. HP is showing off their new ultrabook, the Envy 14 at CES 2012.

Via LA Times:

“Surrounded by every electronic device imaginable at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, HP’s new Envy 14 Spectre is in a class by itself, mostly because the class it’s in — “the premium consumer Ultrabook” –  seems to have been invented just to have some place to put it.”

The specs are pretty good for a device of it’s size:

• 14 inch Gorilla Glass display
• 1600×900 resolution
• 1.6GHZ Core i5 processor standard
• 4GB RAM standard, upgradable to 8GB RAM
• 128GB SSD drive standard, upgradable to 256GB SSD drive.
• Built-in HD webcam
• Beats Audio as well as HP wireless audio
• HP CoolSense technology which automatically adjusts when you’re working to prevent overheating
• Backlit keyboard
• 9 hour battery life
• 3.79 pounds
• Copies of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premier Elements

With that said, it isn’t cheap. It starts at $1,400 with the stock options as mentioned above. If you want beefier performance, well, you’ll want to have beefier pockets. The ultrabook is said to be available on February 8th.

While $1,400 or more sounds pricey, the fact that it comes with full copies of Photoshop and Premier Elements can be quite the money saver for those who need or were planning on purchasing them separately.

And what makes it interesting as well is that the Envy 14 Spectre is mostly made of glass. Before you start to picture something that would shatter in a million pieces when you drop it, keep in mind it’s Gorilla Glass which is very strong and durable.

HP Unveils Their New Ultrabook At CES 2012, The Envy 14 Spectre is a post from: The Inquisitr

Okay this is definitely one that I didn’t see coming but according to researchers at Columbia University there is a vulnerability affecting millions of printers that could literally see them being hacked into setting themselves on fire.

Professor Salvatore Stolfo has found that the devices are totally open and exploitable; which is possibly due to the increasing amount of technology that is being crammed into printers while at the same time security has been lagging.

One of the leading printers found to have this vulnerability is the HP LaserJet line of printers that allows hackers to push unauthorized firmware updates to the printers. Apparently the HP printers will go out to the web before printing to see if there are any updates that it might need. The problem is that the printers don’t do any kind of source check before downloading and installing any updates. this means that anyone with any kind of know-how can trick the printers into accepting the bad update.

When it came to demonstrating the kind of damage that could be done Professor Stolfo showed how it was possible to get the printer to overheat the fuser until it melts, and while there are protection switches to stop the printer from actually catching on fire Stolfo showed that it could be done.

There are more subtle applications as well. In another demonstration, an infiltrated printer was used to copy printed documents and send them off to hackers. In this case, tax returns being printed on an infected device were copied and sent off to hackers where they could be scanned for information like social security numbers. And of course, any hackers who wanted to just disable printers in an entirely mundane fashion could do that as well, easily.

via Geekosystem

Of course this possibility of hacked printers never thought it would happen as they push for an Internet of Things eh.

image via chaz6.com on Flickr

HP printers prone to an exploits that could light them on fire is a post from: The Inquisitr

A new rumor is circulating today that Amazon is attempting to buy Palm from Hewlett Packard less than one year after the company was acquired.

According to sources close to the deal Amazon would like to take control of the WebOS operating system so they can create a more unique tablet experience.

The rumor makes sense now that Palm’s former CEO who works in “product innovation” for HP has joined the board of directors at Amazon.

Speaking of the deal Devindra Hardawar at VentureBeat wrote:

The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but it’s been heavily customized by Amazon to the point where you can barely tell. By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market.

With HP ditching their own WebOS based tablet plans and critical acclaim surrounding the capabilities of WebOS it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a buyer has come forward, now it will be interesting to see what Amazon does with a popular operating system should the sale be finalized.

Do you think a WebOS powered Amazon tablet would be worth buying?

Amazon Looking To Buy Palm From HP is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hewlett Packard CEO Leo Apotheker was replaced this week by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and now we’ve learned that Leo will receive an exit package worth more than $25 million, not bad considering he’s been the company’s CEO for less than 11 months.

According to reports Apotheker has already earned most of his $1.2 million annual salary, while also having received a $4 million signing bonus and $4.6 million for “relocation assistance” and to offset a payment forfeited by former employer SAP. The company’s former CEO will receive a severance package of $7.2 million in cash and $18 million in stock.

Apotheker’s September 2010 contract specifically states that he would receive twice his salary and twice his average performance bonus in cash if he was forced out of the company. While the former CEO never earned a bonus given his short stint at the company they have agreed to pay him twice his salary as a bonus marker.

Casting an even wider golden umbrella over his resignation his stock grants will vest immediately to provide him with 800,000 shares of Hewlett Packard stock.

It’s not the first time HP has had to pay out big money to CEO’s in recent memory in fact Leo is the third HP CEO in just six years. When all is said and done Hewlett Packard has paid out $83.3 million to those heads of company.

At this rate the best way to earn millions as a CEO is to land the top job at HP and then just wait to get fired.

Do you think HP should demand better job performance clauses for their contracts? Unfortunately it likely won’t happen since they want to draw in top talent to their organization and removing those bonuses would stifle their headhunting efforts.

Hewlett Packard’s Fired CEO Leo Apotheker To Receive More Than $25 Million is a post from: The Inquisitr

Well it’s official, not only has Meg Whitman been hired by the HP board to replace ousted Léo Apotheker; who has been on the job for less than a year and will apparently walk away from the job with $10 million, but the HP board continues to show its own incompetence.

The simple fact is that any problems with the once venerable Hewlett-Packard isn’t so much who the CEO is but the fact that the board of directors for the company have been totally negligent in their care and running of the company. Thsi is something that started way back with the whole Fiorina mess that was exasperated by Hurd and his decimation of the company in order to make Wall Street happy.

So what do they do to try and fix the mess – they hire a SAP executive by the name of Léo Apotheker, who had left SAP under a cloud, a cloud that seems to have followed him to HP where he took the mess created by Mark Hurd and made it an even bigger mess to the point that the value of the company went even further in the toilet.

Now this very same board goes and gives him the boot and installs ex-eBay CEO; and failed California candidate for governor, Meg Whitman in his place. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire.

As with all previous CEO moves of late the HP board caused heads to shake in bewilderment at this move, a move that puts the woman who basically had to step down from a company that had become outdated and stagnant in one of the most important roles in a company that is in desperate need of leadership and vision.

What strikes me as strange is that one would think that if you are one of the world’s largest enterprise and hardware companies wouldn’t you .. like .. hire someone who understands that part of the business?

Instead HP hires someone who’s main claim to fame is running the world’s largest electronic auction houses. I mean, really where does any of her core competencies match up with the needs of HP?

HP continues to show cluelessness as they hire Meg Whitman to replace Apotheker is a post from: The Inquisitr

Former eBay CEO and former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman may be on deck for the top slot at Hewlett-Packard, if anonymous sources are correct.

The report stems from the tech site AllThingsD, which cites credible individuals close to the matter in a post. The move is not said to be a “done deal” by any stretch of the imagination, but the site says Whitman has been considering transitioning back to a role like the HP CEO spot- and that the company’s board has been trying to reverse its fortunes after a year during which its stock has tanked a scary 43%.

Current CEO Léo Apotheker has been at the post for about a year, but the company has had a run of bad luck in recent months. AllThingsD cites a suit against HP filed earlier this month in US District Court in Central California surrounding the company’s handling of the discontinuation of webOS software:

“HP shareholder named Richard Gammel alleged that comments by CEO Léo Apotheker — concerning the company’s earnings expectations, the importance of its personal computer business and plans to move ahead with devices running the webOS operating system — gave a vastly different indication of actions HP took on Aug. 18, when it killed the webOS hardware business and announced plans to spin off the PC business and spend $10 billion to acquire Autonomy.”

In addition to stock losses and the webOS problems, the company also had to lay off 100,000 workers in the Palm division. Prior to Apotheker’s appointment, former CEO Mark Hurd resigned under pressure after a sexual harassment investigation as well as various accusations about expense reports related to the claim. The board found no evidence to support the harassment claims.

Neither HP nor Whitman have acknowledged or commented upon the rumor.

Meg Whitman Eyed as New Hewlett-Packard CEO is a post from: The Inquisitr

In news that will not surprise anyone who has been following the HP meltdown over WebOS this weekend, the company has announced that the HP Pre 3 smartphone will not be sold in the United States. The company has however revealed that the Pre 3 will be available in the U.K. and France for a considerably low unlocked price of just $75.

To put that pricing into perspective, the HP Pre 3 currently sells for $505 in France and $490 in the U.K., while locations throughout Germany have already announced that they are sold out.

Expected to be the flagship smartphone for the HP line of webOS devices the company announced this week that they were discontinuing the HP TouchPad tablet and likely abandoning the webOS platform all together.

The Palm Pre 3 featured the largest keypad of any devices to date along with a 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor and a 3.6-inch display that offers 480 x 800 pixels of resolution, 2.5x better than the original Pre. The device also comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera includes image stabilization, autofocus, and LED flash, while a video calling camera is also featured on the forward-facing part of the device.

While the Smartphone is not officially available in the U.S. grey market devices will at least partially work on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks with 2.5G Edge use, however the devices feature the 900, 1900 and 2100Mhz bands which eliminates 3G coverage in the U.S.

Are you willing to pick up an HP Pre 3 with the understanding that support will not be offered and warranties will be left by the wayside in North America?

HP Pre 3 Cancelled For U.S., Shipping For $75 Dollars In Europe is a post from: The Inquisitr

After announcing that they will no longer sell the discontinued HP TouchPad Best Buy has resumed sales of the device while warning customers that the tablet will not be supported or warrantied by the company.

The move comes after HP pushed the cost of the 16GB version down to just $99 and the 32 GB version to $149, price cuts of $300 or more depending on the unit chosen.

Reversing their sales decision Best Buy said on Sunday:

“Due to HP’s decision to discontinue its TouchPad product, Best Buy® will now provide clearance pricing for all TouchPad 16GB and 32GB models (SKUs 2842056, 2842092) regardless of previously advertised prices or promotions.”

Not wanting customers who purchased the devices months ago to feel slighted Best Buy says they will refund the devices in full or offer checks for the difference in pricing those customers paid compared to the new clearance pricing.

At this time it’s still unclear if new apps will be released for WebOS or if HP will offer proper support for the units, that’s why Best Buy has laid out the following purchaser conditions:

• Best Buy will not accept customer returns or exchanges on clearance-priced TouchPads bought through any Best Buy channel.
• Customers purchasing a TouchPad at clearance pricing will have a 1-year manufacturer’s warranty, fulfilled directly through HP, not Best Buy.
• Customers who purchased the 16GB or 32GB TouchPad after June 19 may come into the store to get either a full refund or a refund of the difference between the price they paid and the clearance price.
• Quantities are strictly limited. Limit 1 per customer. Best Buy cannot guarantee availability of inventory at this pricing at any particular Best Buy location or channel.

Are you willing to pick up an HP TouchPad when the devices future is so uncertain?

Best Buy Once Again Selling HP TouchPad, Buyers Beware is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hewlett-Packard on Thursday announced that they are discontinuing their tablet computer and smartphone products and may sell or spin off their PC division, essentially leaving the consumer products business.

The announcement means the company will stop producing their HP TouchPad tablets which managed to only move 25,000 units at Best Buy stores, a far cry from the millions of iPad, iPad 2 and various Google Android devices that have been sold to date. The company also says their computers by this time next year could be stamped with another company’s name.

The move, one of the most dramatic in the company’s 72-year history appears to be motivated by a similar move undertaken by IBM after their consumer business began to erode due to heavy competition from Dell, Apple and other desktop and laptop manufacturers. IBM now focuses on their highly successful software and computing services.

HP also took some time on Thursday to announced that they have purchased business software maker Autonomy Corp. for approximately $10 billion, making that deal one of the company’s biggest acquisitions of all time.

Following news of their reorganization the company announced a rise in third-quarter income but also cut their outlook for the rest of the year.

The announcement of WebOS’s demise comes just 16 months after HP spent $1.2 billion to buy Palm, the creators of the WebOS mobile operating system.

I for one will be happy to see the HP line of laptops and desktops come to an end, my wife has had nothing but issues with her HP and Compaq models since purchasing them from HP and their customer support is horrendous, it’s no wonder their consumer oriented business has all but shriveled up and died.

HP Exits Tablet and Smartphone Markets, Possibly Killing Off Their Entire Consumer Business is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is no denying the fact that when it comes to tablets Apple’s iPad is the reigning king of the hill but it was a reign that HP was really hoping that they could make a serious dent in with their webOS powered TouchPad.

When first launched there was a lot of buzz around it and the reaction was, for the most part, pretty favorable. It was good enough at the time that Best Buy decided to jump on the TouchPad bandwagon and ordered up 270,000 of HP’s tablet.

Now months later it turns out that where it matters most – in the consumers hands – the TouchPad was far from a success as Best Buy apparently has only sold 25,000 of the them; and this is even after a $100 price cut.

Things are so bad that Best Buy is telling HP that it wants to return all of their unsold stock of the TouchPad.

According to the same source, Best Buy took 270,000 TouchPads into inventory, and so far has managed to move less than ten percent of them—and that figure may not even take returned units into account. Best Buy reportedly no longer wants unsold TouchPads taking up space in its stores and warehouses, and is requesting that HP take the stock back.

Best Buy and Woot are not alone in their inability to move TouchPads, analyst Rich Doherty of the Envisioneering Group told AllThingsD; WalMart, Microcenter, and Fry’s have all struck out.

via Ars Technica

This is happening at the same time that HP is trying to position its webOS as a natural fit for things other than just the TouchPad.

SlashGear has a post up about how HP is also exploring the option of putting the webOS software into things like cars and home appliances based on an enormous amount of interest from manufacturers.

Given the rip-roaring success of the TouchPad I wish HP all the luck in the work in cracking an even harder market, after all they do have to find some way to recoup the fortune they paid for Palm and webOS.

About those TouchPads – “We don’t want them anymore” says Best Buy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Meet The HP Pavilion g6s, A Budget Friendly Sandy Bridge Laptop is a post from: The Inquisitr

If the screenshot above is real the HP TouchPad WiFi only tablet with 32GB of internal memory and a 10.1-inch display will be sold by the retailer for $599.

The leak at this time only shows the 32GB variant of the device however a 16GB WiFi only variant is also expected for $100 less, while the seven-inch models with 3G and 4G service have yet to surface.

The Walmart leak does not give an exact release date however the devices are expected to be released sometime in June.

Walmart is also selling the TouchPad-specific Touchstone Dock/Stand for $79.88, while they will also carry the webOS bluetooth keyboard for $69.88 and the first-party TouchPad case for $49.88. An additional AC charger has also been priced at $29.88.

[via PreCentral]

HP TouchPad 32GB Shown In Walmart System For $599 is a post from: The Inquisitr

AT&T Announces $99 HP Veer 4G is a post from: The Inquisitr

I like how in this scenario, Harry and Voldie are Facebook friends. Also, you misspelled Voldemort.

Voldemort weighs in on Justin Bieber controversy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Ready to get your hands on the HP Pre 2? You can get your pre-order in now at VerizonWireless.com.

The phone comes with a very cheap $100 price tag with a two-year contract that includes a data plan or you can pick up the phone with a contract for a still rather decent $450 price tag.

The phone ships with WebOS 2.0 which includes a “Vivid” touchscreen and a variety of recognized options such as a portrait sliding keyboard.

So what do you think? iPhone 4 or Pre 2? Yeah it probably wasn’t the most ideal time for HP to roll out the device, but I’m a WebOS fan and so I might actually give the phone a test run on the Verizon Wireless network.

HP Pre 2 Gets Verizon Pre-Order Page, $100 Cost is a post from: The Inquisitr

When HP purchased Palm they promised that ebOS would not only continue to develop, but eventually be offered on more than Smartphones and the HP Slate and today they have “unofficially” confirmed that they are working on webOS Netbooks.

The announcement of the Netbook option comes from a carrier training website for HP which highlights the upcoming features of the webOS product, in those training materials HP points to Phones, Slates and Netbooks as the future of the operating system.

The training video says webOS will be most beneficial when the synergy of webOS based smartphones, slates and netbooks are used in tandem with one another.

A few days ago Todd Bradley said the company was working on creating a fully “connected experience” and now it looks like that experience is getting closer to a final set of introduction products.

Are you willing to test out webOS on a netbook? With the systems awesome multi-tasking capabilities I’m all game.

HP Promises webOS Based Netbooks [Training Leak] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Today seems to be a big day for news about people looking for new jobs. First of course is the big layoff rumored to be happening at Myspace, then comes news out of Redmond that President of  Server and Tools Business Bob Muglia has been shown the door, even though he’ll be hanging around until summer.

Now e get word that AMD has decided that it’s time for some new leadership as the board announced that CEO Dirk Meyer is by mutual agreement with the board of directors resigning immediately.

All this is rather puzzling since it was under Meyer’s leadership that AMD managed to engineer a turnaround and actually pull ahead of Intel in some cases.

The CEO search committee will be headed by Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD’s board. Claflin will become executive chairman as he assumes additional responsibilities during the transition. Seifert will maintain his current job as CFO and has asked not to be considered for the permanent CEO job.

“Dirk became CEO during difficult times.  He successfully stabilized AMD while simultaneously concluding strategic initiatives including the launch of GlobalFoundries, the successful settlement of our litigation with Intel and delivering Fusion (accelerated processing units) APUs to the market,” said Claflin.

”However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time,” Claflin continued. ” This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns.  We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives.”

via VentureBeat

One has to wonder, given the circumstances, what kind of possible scandal is lurking under the surface. It sure makes one think of the whole HP and Hurd fiasco.

AMD kicks current CEO to the curb is a post from: The Inquisitr

HP Mini 1103 Rolled Out, Cheapest Business Netbook To Date is a post from: The Inquisitr